


Marked

by pagerunner



Category: Borderlands
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-18
Updated: 2015-11-18
Packaged: 2018-05-02 05:54:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5236817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pagerunner/pseuds/pagerunner
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wherein Jack gets a good look at Rhys' tattoos for the first time, and has questions...because if the implications of those tattoos messed with us for months, they'd sure as hell mess with him, too. Rhys/Jack feelings implied, but not overt. Rhys has enough to deal with here as it is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Marked

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place during the Episode 3 opening montage, since they were on the road for several days there, and, well, personal logistics must be attended to sometime. ;)

Jack didn’t find out about Rhys’ other tattoos straightaway, not until he interrupted Rhys trying to wash up in the caravan.

That process was an awkward arrangement by Rhys’ standards, seeing as the caravan only offered a large basin for sponge bathing, tucked behind that battered dressing screen and a handwritten sign reading PEEK AND YOU DIE. Rhys suspected Sasha of writing it. The girls got first crack at the hot water, and after Athena’s exit—glaring suspiciously at Rhys the whole way, as if he’d had any interest in being beheaded for intruding—Vaughn waved Rhys in, probably just eager to get him out of his hair. Rhys had, admittedly, been complaining about the state of his own hair for two days straight. If he’d had to draw up a list of things he missed most about Helios, “showers” would be right at the top.

Seriously, by this point he was having downright erotic thoughts not about the station’s infamous orgy rooms, but the bathing facilities attached to them. And just for the sake of taking a bath. Which was probably really fucking sad.

Then again, he thought dryly, so was the state of the grayish water in this basin. Rhys sighed. Telling himself it was better than nothing, he set about undoing his tie and loosening his collar. There was a small, cracked mirror back there, which he contemplated balefully as he began to undress. He’d definitely looked better. He hoped this venture wouldn’t make things any _worse._

It was at that moment of bruised vanity, naturally, that blue light crackled in his vision—but not in the glass. Knowing what was coming, Rhys tried to pull his unbuttoned shirt back together and shut his eyes.

“ _Hello,_ cupcake. Enjoying the latest and greatest in horrific Pandoran hygiene?” Jack greeted him, sounding entirely too cheerful. “Probably past time, too. You’ve all been painting a hell of a picture the last couple days. I gotta tell you, though, one of the very few bonuses of being a hologram? No sense of smell.“

“Oh my God, Jack,” Rhys hissed. Barring perhaps Vaughn, everyone else had headed outside already, but he still couldn’t risk being heard. Even so, he turned to face Jack head-on. “Can’t you _read?”_

“What, the sign? I’m already dead, doesn’t much matter.” He smirked. “Besides, it’s about time you and me checked in, and you—”

The words cut off so abruptly that Rhys shook his head, wondering if something had just gone awry with his cybernetics. Jack, though, was still standing there, staring dead at Rhys. The lines of his expression peaked first into shock, then lowered to a dangerous glare.

“Um,” Rhys said. “What did I…?”

Jack answered with another question. “What _is_ that on your throat?”

Rhys, confused, touched the circular patterns on his neck. It meant the shirt fell the rest of the way loose. “What, this? I thought you’d seen that before.”

“No, kitten. Lower.”

Rhys kept staring, an odd feeling roiling in his gut. There was something far more threatening about Jack’s voice when it came out that softly, curled around such supposed endearments. And Rhys had no idea what had made him so agitated.

Rhys’ fingers dropped to his collarbone. Slowly he realized what Jack was staring at. “You mean these,” he said, tracing one finger along the top edge of his chest tattoos.

Jack replied with that same deceptive calm. “Yes, Rhys. Those.”

He glanced down. These tattoos were normally hidden beneath his clothes, which was deliberate. The neck tattoo was a statement, and a defiant one at that, although most people at Hyperion weren’t quick enough on the uptake even to realize what that single mark outside the wheels actually represented. The body tattoos, on the other hand, were more personal, and so by dint of high collars and fortunate timing, Jack hadn’t seen them yet.

Well. Fortunate until now, anyway.

Rhys tugged at his shirt, peering beneath the fabric. “It’s just…a design,” he said. “An idea I’d had.”

“Hmph. You telling me you’re some kind of artist now?”

“Sometimes.” Rhys’ tone was getting more challenging. “Graphics work, yeah. I’m not just sitting there playing code monkey all day with nothing else in my brain, thank you very much.”

Jack failed to look impressed. He was still angry in some way Rhys couldn’t get a finger on. “Then what is this grand design of yours, Rhysie?”

Rhys thought about it, set his jaw, and yanked his shirt the rest of the way off. Jack didn’t overtly react, but that in its own way was unnerving, because he was certainly still looking. Without saying a word, he stepped closer, circled Rhys slowly, then came back around to the front, still studying the marks. The way his hand reached up, then folded back in a gesture of frustrated futility, it was like he’d wanted to touch. Or possibly tug Rhys’ pants down to complete the inspection. Rhys wasn’t sure which idea was more unsettling.

If _unsettling_ was in fact the word.

“So,” Jack said, indicating a slant across Rhys’ body with one pointed finger. “What does all this represent to you, exactly?”

He thought for a second. He _knew_ , deep down; he always had. He just wasn’t sure how to put it into words. “It was…aesthetic, for one thing. Something to balance out the new arm. I got it done not long after the upgrades.”

“Hmm.”

“But it’s more than that, too. It’s…” He shrugged, distantly aware of how that made his marked skin move. “Siren-inspired, honestly.”

Jack kept staring. “Sirens,” he repeated quietly. 

Rhys stretched out his left arm. The tattoos didn’t extend the entire length, but the most intricate parts of the work—symbols like abstracted electric circuitry—still made their way down his biceps. 

“They’re pretty fascinating,” he said. He turned his wrist like he was imagining that electricity spilling right down to his fingertips. “And I know no one really knows the whole story behind their tattoos, but it just seemed to me like….an outward expression of their internal selves, you know? Their identity, their powers, what they could do.”

Jack didn’t respond to that. He just waited for Rhys to continue.

“And I kept thinking about it because—well, I was trying to redefine what _I_ was. There was so much bottled up in my head…I wanted to take all of that somehow, make it tangible for myself. Real.” He lowered his hand, self-conscious again under Jack’s gaze. “Seemed like a good idea at the time, anyway.”

Jack took that in silently, then moved closer again. One large, broad hand spread out, hovering in midair above the largest of the designs. Rhys’ heart hammered beneath it.

“Ballsy move, claiming that kind of comparison for yourself,” Jack said. His voice was still soft, still dangerous, and Rhys wished he knew _why._ Then suddenly Jack grinned. “You are something _else_ , cupcake.”

Perhaps proving Jack’s point, Rhys risked pushing him. “I’m also not the only one here with a tattoo, I know that much.”

Jack’s eyebrows lifted. He turned his hand, lifting it higher until the tattoo was at eye level. Then he outright laughed. “Oh, honey, if you think that’s the only one…” He paused, studying the pattern ringing his wrist. “Actually, um, it might be right now. Not sure Nakayama got the memo about the rest, honestly. Unless he was being a _serious_ creeper.”

Rhys tried not to think about what that meant for their locations. He shook his head and asked instead, “Are the others blue, too?”

Jack gave him a look. Color was kind of academic when Jack’s whole form these days was blue, but Rhys had seen pictures of Jack before this, plenty of them, and he remembered. Jack’s wrist tattoo had been nearly the same shade as his own ink. And of course Jack chose to push back about that. “Is that why you picked blue for yours?”

“Well, it wasn’t just—“

“Rhysie, Rhysie.” He shook his head. “I can see where this is going. Listen: this hero-worship thing you’ve got going is cute and all, but think about it. You’re talking about symbols you chose to define yourself, yet you’re still modeling them off other people. Doesn’t that strike you as a _little_ curious?”

Rhys opened his mouth, shut it again. Then he frowned. He didn’t like the way Jack was spinning this. “Okay, other people may have inspired me. But that’s not all there was.”

Jack made a little “hmph” sound again. Rhys pressed on.

“It was just a…a starting point. A spark. But the rest was my call. My ideas, my design, things from my life. It’s still _me.”_

He said that more loudly than he’d meant to. Fortunately, there was no response from the caravan beyond. Maybe he’d gotten lucky, and everyone else had left him some privacy after all. For now, in this little space, he had more than enough to handle—beginning with Jack’s smile, which had changed somehow, just by minute little shifts. The new angle made him wonder.

“You’ve got some backbone, then,” Jack said, watching Rhys now on an inquisitive tilt. “Good for you.”

Under that gaze, Rhys shivered. Jack noticed every bit of it. His smile spread even wider.

“So, uh, kitten,” he said, sounding dangerous for a whole different reason now. “Was that a ‘Jack left me all scared and vulnerable and exposed in the cold’ shiver, or an ‘actually, all this _deeply_ personal attention from Handsome Jack is kinda turning me on’ shiver? ‘Cause I’m thinking it might be a little bit of both.”

“Oh, my God,” Rhys said under his breath, and turned away in a hurry, looking for his shirt. Jack just laughed.

“Right, right. Reaction _noted._ I’m going to let you take care of that, then. But just so you know—“

Rhys tensed before the mirror, waiting for the punchline. Which, knowing Jack, might actually be a punch. But all he did was say something else in Rhys’ ear. Rhys couldn’t see him in the reflection, but Jack was still right there somehow, present in every bit of Rhys’ reaction to the words.

“Those tattoos? All those smarts of yours? The confidence, when you show it? They’re pretty goddamn hot, Rhysie. You’ve got a ton of potential.”

He flushed despite himself, for all sorts of reasons. “You think so?”

“Mmm-hmm. And don’t ever forget it. Because you and I? We’re gonna do amazing things together.” 

For a second, the briefest, headiest instant, Rhys thrilled to the praise. Then Jack’s voice cut in again, so sharply and suddenly it drained the rest of the breath from him.

“But you’re also right on the edge of overstepping, here. And if you start presuming too much? I will be _right there,_ Rhys. Don’t think I’m not watching.”

Rhys turned, eyes wide, and stared at Jack as he gave Rhys one more unnerving smile: something not quite cruel, but certainly not kind.

“Enjoy your bath, cupcake,” he said, and winked out.

Rhys stood there frozen in his wake, trying just to breathe.

He had no idea how much time passed before he heard the caravan door click open from someone’s entry. He jumped. For all he knew it might have been Fiona or Sasha, or Athena come back to finish the Death Glare from earlier, but what he heard was almost worse, because it was harder to lie to. It was Vaughn’s impatient voice calling out, “Hey, bro? You done yet in there?”

Rhys winced, bracing his hands against the countertop and bending his head. “Sorry,” he replied, his voice rougher than he’d hoped. “Just a minute.”

Before Vaughn could say anything else, Rhys grabbed a rag from the counter, dunked it into the water, and pressed it straight to his overheated face. The shock of it made him gasp. Everything right now was too much, too sharp, too _real…_

And he still didn’t understand exactly what he’d done wrong.

 _It’s Jack,_ he told himself, trying to quell the shivering in his limbs that hadn’t really stopped. _It’s just Jack, he’s always been like this. Mercurial, unpredictable…you gotta step fast to stay on his good side. You’ve managed to get_ this _far already, you can keep it up. And it’s not all bad, what he said. He just told you you’ve got potential…_

The inevitable conclusion whispered through his thoughts.

_If you do it all his way._

Rhys pulled the washcloth down, enough that he could see over the top edge. His reflection stared back, looking bright-eyed and overwhelmed. And just for an instant, he could swear he saw his cybernetic eye flash from blue to Jack’s other, unmistakable color: Hyperion yellow, sharp and searing.

_Don’t think I’m not watching…_

At that eerie, crackling echo, Rhys shut his eyes.

And when the water began dripping down his chin and throat, slanting its way across the tattoos beneath like the cut of a knife, of course, of _course,_ it had gone cold.


End file.
